


Five Ways Wash Accumlated his Dinosaur Collection

by karrenia_rune



Category: Firefly
Genre: Dinosaurs, Fic or Treat Meme, Gen, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-17 21:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10602903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune





	

Disclaimer: Firefly belongs to its creator Joss Whedon and it's creators and producers. It is not mine and is simply 'borrowed' for the purposes of the story.

 

Every so often Hoban "Wash" used his downtime to take out and admire, and let's be honest here, play with his collection.

Given the size of the ship and the fact that he spent most but not all of his waking time in the cockpit he'd had had to keep the size of the plastic dinosaurs to about 5 to 7 inches tall. Nor were these all of one type or color. All the same, these were his. 

If pressed he could not have said when he'd developed the interest in dinosaurs. Most people these days couldn't even remember much about Old Earth and the fact these majesty creatures used to roam that old mud-ball many, many millions of years ago.

Out here in the Black most people wouldn't have known and even if they had known about that bit of factoid; very likely they would not have cared. But Wash cared. He'd learned about them somewhere, where really did not matter all that much.

He'd even recalled having a shirt once as a little boy that his mother, father, it was still much a gray blur in his memory, had given him once with pictures and names of different species of dinosaurs on it. He picked up each molded plastic dinosaur as he rattled off their names aloud.

He really liked that T-shirt. In fact liked it so much that he recalled wearing it for a week straight despite his mother's insistence that it was either time to wash the shirt, or wash him and the shirt on bath day.

"Diplodocus, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Tryansarous Rex, Brontosaurus, etc, etc, and the list went on. That was back when he'd been a small and rather impressionable little boy.

 

Later on, in school, he'd learned that the fancy word for folks who used to study these lizards for a living were called paleontologists, and he'd fancied that one day that he would grow up to be just like them. However, as he grew up, Wash learned that was simply a nice dream while it lasted.

So he had had to discover other dreams like becoming a pilot, preferably out here in space. It was not that he had anything against planet-siders or that he was uncomfortable dirt-side as he'd heard some spacers got from time to time. It was that he liked even preferred out here in the Black. 

And given the stuff that the crew of the "Serenity" got up to these days it was wiser and safer policy to put as much distance between oneself and the Alliance as one possibly could.

The second time he'd had a chance to get his hands on these was a trader in Old Earth antiques and relics. That's when he'd gotten his hands on some of his favorites, like Old T-Rexie over there. Sure, he'd heard all the jokes about the fact that Rex had short stubby arms that foreshortened his reach,; hell, he'd even been known to make a few jokes of his own, but Rex was a trusted friend. 

 

Wash picked up and began to jostle it around pretending that it was menacing the other smaller and less predatory dinosaurs as it would probably have done all those millions upon millions of years ago. He even uttered short guttural sounds trying to imitate the roars that old Rexie would have made. 

He wondered absently, if the T-Rex's used their roars for other things besides hunting and intimidation, like perhaps, attracting a mate? Then he shoved the thought into a back corner of his mind. He had a mate and Zoe tolerated his 'obsession' with his toys, as she put it. 

The third time he'd gotten his hands on a few pieces of his prized collection was shortly after he'd met Zoe. That was right before the war with the Alliance and they'd were still in the tentative stages of their relationship. She'd give him the Brontosaurus because even though it was big and menacing it was also plant-eater. He’d thought that she was indulging him or making a joke at his expense. Oh, well.

 

Even to this day, after everything they'd been through, Wash still had no idea if Zoe had been teasing him about that, or in deadly earnest. With Zoe, whom he loved dearly, hell, he'd even go so far as to say that he loved her more than life itself; could be difficult to figure to sometimes. He still playing poker with her, for fun and for the challenge.

Thinking of this, Wash wondered if now would be a good time to ask the rest of the crew if they wanted in on a little friendly game. He could put the ship on auto-pilot and he they could cruise for a while. 

Mal, was more than likely stewing over the fact that they hadn't gotten a job offer in a while but a nice friendly game of cards would be just the thing to get folk's morale up to snuff. Yeah, that's a great idea!"

The fourth time was an unexpected haul from a salvage mission and as the crew of the Firefly unpacked and sorted through the haul of equipment and supplies he'd found an unexpected trove of dinosaurs.

He vaguely recalled River Tam, their strangest and most enigmatic crew member, had made some sort of remark when he’d made this discovery. She’d said something about swallowing the sea, swallowing the sky, just follow me. No, you can’t catch me. 

He still could not figure out what she’d meant by that. Wash didn’t worry too much about what River meant or didn’t mean; it was all too murky and confusing for the likes of him. He left that to Mal and the Doc and the rest.

Ever since then he'd tried to see if people out here in the black or even on some of the Alliance worlds might have some or be willing to trade if they did. Wash grinned, patting his collection, then carefully putting back some but not all; because he liked to have a few sharing the cockpit with him, back in their carrying case.


End file.
